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Monday, October 24, 2011

Life's No Fun Without A Good Scare

Today marks the start of my favorite week of the year, the week that my birthday and Halloween both happen. To celebrate, I'm going to post awesome Halloween stuff all week long. So sit back and enjoy today's creepy delight, Neil Gaiman's Newbery Award winning book, The Graveyard Book.

In true Gaiman fashion, The Graveyard Book is a wildly imaginative tale full of twists and turns that take you to magical and fantastical places. The story focuses on Bod, who starts the story as a baby. His family has been murdered, and he alone escaped the knife of the man Jack. Bod wanders into a graveyard where he is taken in by the ghostly and otherworldly inhabitants who vow to raise Bod as their own.

This book is funny, macabre, thrilling, painful, but above all terribly beautiful. And though it was written for a younger audience, there is no reason adults won't enjoy it as well. In fact, the layers of complexity that Gaiman weaves together ensure that they will.

Sleep my little babby-oh

Sleep until you waken

When you're grown you'll see the world

If I'm not mistaken.

Kiss a lover,

Dance a measure

Find your name

and buried treasure...

To say I like this book is simply inadequate. I devoured this book in an afternoon. At 312 pages (included the acknowledgments) it's not that big a feat, but it's not something I usually do. And after I devoured it, I read it again, slowly, spreading it out over a week. The second read was every bit as wonderful as the first.